Camerons Should Live Full Time at Chequers

By Iain Martin

It is said that the Camerons are renovating the flat in Number 10/11. A new kitchen is being installed at their own expense. (No doubt it’s “Fired Earth Paraguayan slate floor tiles and Farrow & Ball painted freestanding units, babe.”)

Frankly, they shouldn’t have to bother. It is ridiculous that a young family should be expected to live all week in the flat above the shop in Downing Street. Fine perhaps for a couple with grown-up offspring who have flown the nest, but in this era of younger PMs with children, the arrangement doesn’t work at all.

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A general view of Chequers, the prime minister’s official country residence, in Buckinghamshire, England. The property, which dates from the 16th century, was bequeathed to the nation as the country estate for the serving prime minister by the Chequers Estate Act in 1917.

The experiment has been tried with the Browns and the Blairs, and there is no way it’s a comfortable environment for children. Where are they supposed to play? And how is any family supposed to conduct a decent argument while fearing that they will be overheard at every turn?

The flat is not, as it is billed, some kind of luxury penthouse. It is a few decent sized rooms atop a very busy office complex in central London. Then there’s the garden, which is not particularly private, being overlooked for most of the day by working civil servants and Number 10 staff. Schooling is a problem, too. If they move in, the Cameron children will have to be ferried out of the back door of Downing Street in people carriers to the school gate.

Their lives are going to be stressful enough. None of it is a very sensible way to create a relaxed atmosphere for a PM and his family, who cannot live in their old home thanks to security concerns.

However, in keeping with the spirit of the coalition, I suggest a radical but common sense solution: The Camerons should move full-time into Chequers. Surely the trust that oversees the running of the PM’s country residence could be persuaded to allow it?

Cameron could be driven up to London at dawn on a Monday morning and commute back at high speed one or two nights a week, staying overnight in Number 10 when business or a particularly early start requires it. Throughout, the family would be in the country, with plenty of space. Security would be easier. The children could attend relatively nearby state primary schools.

And irony of ironies, it would even solve the Camerons’ problem when it comes to secondary schools. They want to keep the children in the state system if possible. Within driving distance of Chequers are some good grammar schools.